Bennet, Romanoff Burying the Ol’ Hatchet?

Most Pols readers will not soon forget the odd, long, bruising, and odd battle between Andrew Romanoff and Sen. Michael Bennet in the 2010 Democratic primary for U.S. Senate. The weirdness began in early 2009 with Gov. Bill Ritter's out-of-left-field appointment of Bennet to fill the seat vacated by Ken Salazar, who accepted President Obama's nomination for Secretary of the Interior. Democrats weren't particularly excited about Bennet's appointment, largely because he was unknown outside of Denver. There was also a good deal of lingering resentment that Romanoff did not get the nod from Ritter.

Inexplicably, Romanoff then waited until August to finally jump into the Primary, giving Bennet lots of time to raise money and convince Colorado Democrats that he was the right man for the job. Romanoff raised just enough money to be a pain in the ass for Bennet, but not nearly enough to overcome Bennet's huge head start (not to mention his connections to President Obama). Bennet overcame some last-minute negative ads from Romanoff and ended up with an 8-point victory before going on to defeat Republican Ken Buck in the General Election. Romanoff, Bennet, and many of their respective supporters carried some obvious lingering resentment well past Election Day.

Today that hatchet was symbolically buried with an email announcement from Romanoff's campaign for Congress in CD-6:

Now I have even more good news to report: I’ve earned the endorsement of Sen. Michael Bennet. Here’s what he said:

"Andrew Romanoff has a long record of fighting for Coloradans and a commitment to empowering our next generation with greater opportunity. Andrew has always placed the needs of his constituents above Washington’s politics-as-usual. At a time of partisanship and gridlock, he will work across the aisle to move our nation forward. I am proud to endorse Andrew today and look forward to helping elect him."

I am very grateful for Sen. Bennet’s support, and I’m eager to work with him to break the logjam in Washington.

Our campaign is growing stronger every day. More than 1,000 Coloradans have joined our team in the last four weeks alone. I’m honored to count Michael Bennet among them.

Actually, it does give me the warm fuzzies. Now if only the Romanoff supporters and we Bennet supporters can also bury the hatchet, CD-6 should go Dem this time around and many cycles into the future. Things are looking bright.

I'd feel warmer and fuzzier if Romanoff wasn't sticking with his no PAC pledge for a race like this. Coffman will get tons of money to keep the seat. It's one of the only ones that could turn from R to D. It could be part of a wave to take back the House. We CD6 Dems finally have a real shot for the first time and Romanoff is more interested in parading his purity than in winning the damn thing. And this from the guy who was happy to hire on super sleaze Pat Caddell in 2010 until word got out and everybody had a cow.

I answered a campaign begging e-mail with my concerns and got a reply from Ken Gordon about how they're sticking with their high minded principles. Great. If anyone can lose this seat for us in 2014 for sure, it's Ken Gordon. The pity is, Romanoff could win this thing with the new improved district, all the money he'd be getting without his precious purity pledge and without the exasperating Gordon in a campaign leadership position.

Romanoff sure wasn't anti-PAC when he was winning us a majority in the State legislature. Au contraire. As a CD6er, I'm really, really not a happy camper right now. For a while there I thought I was going to have a Dem US Rep. With their most recent track records, Ken and Andrew strike me as the blind the leading the blind.

If Romanoff can win without selling his soul to Wall St., that would be wonderful. I think your point is good, but I also think Romanoff makes a very good point on this. I'm quite happy to support him with his no PAC pledge.

First, if he doesn't have alternate huge funding, such as a billionaire or two in his corner, the universe of let's all get together with our private contributions crowd for a CD race like this isn't large enough to fund a fight for one of the seats that will be fought for on a national scale with the other side taking all the money it can get its hands on.

Second, not all PACs are Wall Street. Plenty represent hard working citizens.

Third, the combined track record of Romanoff and pal Gordon winning anything other than a safe D small pond district is non-existent. And now they propose doing it with a huge self imposed handicap? Not very encouraging. Especially the part wher Gordon has anything like a big role in it.

Fourth, I think someone who so enthusiastically embraced PAcs while serving in elected office and building a state level majority and who was most recently not at all too fussy to hire Pat Caddell is probably not so much pure as assuming purity for purposes of making a self righteous point, (who knows why. He can't think it gives him enough political advantage to be worth it since he doesn't have to differentiate himself from fellow centrist Bennet this time around) which I would prefer he do on his own dime, not mine.

I too will vote for Romanoff against Coffman (duh) but don't have enough extra money or time these days to be taking big gambles with the one or wasting the other. I would welcome a candidate who is more concerned about winning than with making a look at how noble and pure I am statement. Such a candidate would be a much better bet and those who aspire to pristine purity should choose another profession in any case. Nobody will ever mistake any politician for a saint.

Same goes for most of us who started out back in the day as ignorant starry eyed idealist volunteers but have been around the block a few times since. Politics isn't an old Judy Garland Mickey Rooney movie. In real life, then as now, putting on a show in the barn didn't keep good ol' uncle Ned (or whoever) from losing the farm and blowing his brains out.

Thx, rocco. I took a little stand-back-and-watch R&R, very happy with the way you, Duke, BC, Ari and others were handling the dirty work. Meanwhile, not finding enough synonyms to toss at Repubs, I guess I'll have to fall back on the old reliable asshole, and start carrying my weight again.